Resilience is what he’d like to define people

Bush did another Katrina event, in Mississippi. He pointed out Tommy Longo. “He’s from Waveland.” Actually, he’s the mayor of Waveland, Mississippi. I think I’ve got you all pretty well trained by now; see if you can spot the inappropriate metaphor in the first sentence of the following quotation, and a familiar phrase in the second:

I’ve always viewed Waveland as a benchmark to determine whether or not this recovery is more than just shallow. In other words, I’ll never forget seeing Waveland as we choppered over Waveland. It was like nothing, it was gone, completely destroyed. And so when I talk to Tommy, I really view Tommy as a barometer and if Tommy is optimistic, I’m going to be optimistic; if Tommy says there is progress, I’m going to say, thanks. And Tommy is okay.

He went on,

The interesting thing about the folks who live in this part of the world, they may have lost their building, but they never lost their soul or their spirit. I think the Senator [Trent Lott] called them -- resilience is what he’d like to define people. I call them optimistic about life.